The present invention relates to a novel pharmaceutical composition having high bioavailability through improved dissolution, and a method for preparing it. The invention more particularly relates to a pharmaceutical composition for administration by oral route, containing an active ingredient of poor aqueous solubility.
Numerous active ingredients suffer from the disadvantage of being poorly soluble in an aqueous medium, thus having an insufficient dissolution profile and, consequently, poor bioavailability within the organism, following oral administration. The therapeutic dose required to be administered must thus be increased in order to obviate this disadvantage. This particularly applies to numerous hypolipemiant active ingredients, such as those belonging to the fibrate family.
Fenofibrate is a well-known hypolipemiant from the family of fibrates, which is commercially available in various doses (100 and 300 mg for example Secalip.RTM.) but in a form leading to poor bioavailability of the active ingredient. Indeed, due to it poor hydrosolubility, fenofibrate is poorly absorbed in the digestive tract and consequently its bioavailability is incomplete, irregular and often varies from one person to another.
To improve the dissolution profile of fenofibrate and its bioavailability, thereby reducing the dose requiring to be administered, it would be useful to increase its dissolution so that it could attain a level close to 100%.
Moreover, for patient comfort, it is advantageous to seek a dosage form that only requires the medicament to be taken once daily while giving the same effect as one administered several times daily.
EP-A-0330532 discloses a method for improving bioavailability of fenofibrate. This patent describes the effect of co-micronizing fenofibrate with a surfactant, for example sodium laurylsulfate in order to improve fenofibrate solubility and thereby increase its bioavailability. This patent teaches that co-micronizing fenofibrate with a solid surfactant improves fenofibrate bioavailability to a much greater extent than the improvement that would be obtained either by adding a surfactant, or through solely micronizing the fenofibrate, or, yet again, through intimately mixing the fenofibrate and surfactant, micronized separately. The dissolution method employed is the conventional rotating blade technique (European Pharmacopoeia): product dissolution kinetics are measured in a fixed volume of the dissolution medium, agitated by means of a standardized device; a test was also carried out with an alternative technique to the European Pharmacopoeia, using the continuous-flow cell method.
The process of EP-A-0330532 leads to a new dosage form in which the active ingredient, co-micronized with a solid surfactant, has improved fenofibrate dissolution, and thus increased bioavailability, which makes it possible, for a given level of effectiveness, to decrease the daily dose of the medicament: respective 67 mg and 200 mg instead of 100 mg and 300 mg.
However, the preparation method in that patent is not completely satisfactory inasmuch as it does not lead to complete bioavailability of the active ingredient, and suffers from several disadvantages. The technique of co-micronizing fenofibrate with a solid surfactant does, it is true, improve dissolution of the active ingredient, but this dissolution remains, however, incomplete.
There is thus a need to improve fenofibrate bioavailability in order to attain, over very short periods of time, a level close to 100% (or, in any case, better than the following limits: 10% in 5 minutes, 20% in 10 minutes, 50% in 20 minutes and 75% in 30 minutes in a medium consisting of 1200 ml water to which 2% Polysorbate 80 is added, or of 1000 ml of water to which 0.025M sodium lauryl sulfate sodium is added, with a blade rotation speed of 75 rpm), and this even when dissolution media having a low surfactant content are used.
Applicant has found that, surprisingly, it is possible to resolve this problem by a new method for preparing a pharmaceutical composition by spraying a suspension of the active ingredient onto an inert hydrosoluble carrier. The present invention also relates to pharmaceutical compositions thus prepared.
The use is already known of a polymer, such as polyvinylpyrrolidone for producing tablets, in concentrations of the order of 0.5 to 5% by weight, at a maximum 10% by weight. In this case, the polyvinylpyrrolidone is used as a binder. Similarly, the use of a polymer such as hydroxymethylpropylmethyl cellulose as a granulation binder is known. Thus, European patent application 0,519,144 discloses pellets of a poorly soluble substance, omeprazole, obtained by spraying a dispersion or suspension of the active ingredient in a solution containing said polymer onto inert pellets in a fluidized-bed granulator. However, here again, the polymer (HPMC and HPC) is only used as a granulation binder, in an amount of about 50% by weight, based on the weight of the active ingredient, which, bearing in mind the presence of the inert pellets of a large size (about 700 .mu.m) and the overall final weight leads to final active ingredient and polymer contents which are very low, of the order of barely a few percent based on the weight of the final covered pellet. Finally, it will be noted that the size of the inert pellets in this documents is fairly large, which, in the case of fenofibrate, would lead to a final formulation having a volume which is much too large for ready oral administration.
The use of polymer, such as polyvinylpyrrolidone for manufacturing "solid dispersions" is also known, obtained in general by co-precipitation, co-fusion or liquid-phase mixing followed by drying. What we have here is fixation of the active ingredient in isolated microparticles on the polyvinylpyrrolidone, which avoids problems of poor wetting of the solid and re-agglomeration of the particles. The article "Stable Solid Dispersion System Against Humidity" by Kuchiki et al., Yakuzaigaku, 44 No. 1, 31-37 (1984) describes such a technique for preparing solid dispersions using polyvinylpyrrolidone. The amounts of PVP here are very high, and the ratio between the active ingredient and PVP are comprised between 1/1 and 1/20. In the case however there is no inert carrier.
WO-A-96 01621 further discloses a sustained release composition, comprising an inert core (silica in all examples) coated with a layer which contains the active ingredient in admixture with a hydrophilic polymer, the weight ratio active ingredient/polymer being comprised between 10/1 and 1/2 and the weight ratio active ingredient/inert core being comprised between 5/1 and 1/2, with an outer layer to impart the sustained release property. These compositions can be compressed. The hydrophilic polymer can be polyvinylpyrrolidone. This document also discloses a process for preparing said composition; for example in a fluidized-bed granulator one will spray a dispersion of active ingredient in a polymer solution onto the inert cores. This document solely relates to sustained release compositions, the technical problem to be solved being the compression, without damages, of the outer layer imparting the sustained release property.
Nevertheless, nothing in the state of the art teaches nor suggest the present invention.